Free Disintegration by Scott Nicholson Page A

fifty cents each.
    "That's fine," Renee said.
    "It'll be a minute. That's Wells, W-E-L-L-S, right?"
    "Yes. Like Warren Wells."
    "Oh, yeah. 'Joshua' was his kid's name, wasn't it? One of them, anyway."
    Renee nodded. The woman went to a computer and typed in the name without sitting down. She frowned at the screen, and soon came back to the window. "There's not any."
    "That has to be a mistake. I understand he had been charged with several crimes."
    "Could be a couple of things," the woman said. "Maybe the records were ordered expunged by a judge, or they could have been sealed if he was a juvenile at the time of the offense."
    "What's the age for being tried as an adult?"
    "Depends. For most crimes, it's sixteen."
    "Okay, sorry to trouble you."
    So either Kim had been wrong, or Joshua's crimes had occurred during his early teens. Renee paid with a twenty and declined a receipt. While the woman made change, Renee pressed the button and asked, "Did you know Joshua Wells personally?"
    The woman shook her head, experienced at deflecting any probe for off-limits information. "No. He made the papers once in a while, for sports and things. He was an all-star pitcher before he dropped out of high school. I heard he moved after that."
    Newspaper. She decided her next stop was the library, where she could go through the microfiche files of the
Kingsboro Times-Herald
. At least she'd be able to put a face with a name and start filling in the puzzle. She'd seen his picture in the Wells house when she'd had dinner there before her marriage, but both the boys had been adolescents then. Identical twins often developed different facial features over time.
    She was nearly to the door when another thought occurred to her. She knew little about Jacob's past. Her probing had met a sullen wall that had no chinks. Sure, she knew Warren Wells had made millions in real estate, that his mother had died in a tragic fall, and that Jacob had disliked his parents. But he hadn't opened up about his past and had left no paper trail. He didn't even own a high school yearbook.
    She returned to the service window. The records officer was just settling back into her desk. Instead of waiting for the woman to return to the window, Renee pressed the button and asked for a search on Jacob Wells.
    The clerk's eyes narrowed. "You with the newspaper?"
    "No, just a citizen."
    "He's done a lot for this town. Just remember that."
    How could Renee forget?
    The woman sipped her tea as she operated the keyboard. She squinted at her computer screen and the printer on a filing cabinet beside her desk began scrolling out papers. She brought the stack of papers back to the window and slid them through the slot. "That will be eight more dollars."
    Renee paid and flipped through the papers, her heart pounding. The names in the "suspect" line of the reports read "Jacob Warren Wells."
Her
Jacob.
    Vandalism in the high school parking lot, suspect allegedly gouged the paint on a number of vehicles with a set of keys. Arson, suspect allegedly set some boxes on fire inside a hotel during a Christmas tree growers' convention. Misdemeanor shoplifting and underage possession of alcohol, suspect allegedly stole two bottles of wine from a convenience store. Misdemeanor possession of a controlled substance, suspect allegedly caught smoking marijuana under the high school stadium bleachers. Obstructing and delaying a police officer, suspect allegedly gave his brother's driver license during a traffic stop in an attempt at deception.
    Arson again, this time at the construction site of a building under development by Warren Wells. Charges were later dropped when the fire was attributed to "accidental causes."
    The last arrest report was the most incredible, the most difficult to imagine. Cruelty to animals, suspect allegedly suffocated a cat by sealing it inside a plastic bag.
    "Is that the one you were looking for?" the woman said, watching her.
    Renee shook her head. This must be another